If You Jump, Then I Will Too
by Voice of the Shadow Realm
Summary: Matt and Mello's friendship falls under scrutiny at Near's critical eye as he tries to decide just where their friendship will lead them.


**Authors Note:**

_Just a little thing I've been toying with. Trying to strengthen my writing abilities in this category. I have decided there are far too few friendship stories between Mello and Matt, plenty of yaoi but not enough pure boys being boys. I am a secret Mello/Halle fan, (though it's not so secret now) but I have a few writers who write Mello/Matt really well and I kinda sway with preference. If I'm honest, Mello strikes me as more Bi than anything and Matt, well Matt is too lazy to care any which way. But anyway, here's a teen-aged one-shot for you._

**Disclaimer:**

Do I own Death Note? Well, gee, no. I guess I don't. I don't own monopoly either.

**If You Jump, Then I Will Too.**

The rain thundered against the widow panes of the Orphanage. Fat, sluggish pellets of water slithering down the misted glass, fogged due to the chill from outside and the warmth blasted out of the mouths of two children sitting so close that their noses were squashed against it. Rainy days were all too frequent and hence, not popular with the children of Wammy's House as they struggled to entertain themselves in the lapse of their normal régime. Such a problem was severe enough for all guardians, but more so when your child wards collective IQ's far outstripped that of most M.E.N.S.A meeting's. The usual games lost their novelty long before the rules had been read and one had argued who would be the racing car or the dog.

Mello snarled softly, cheek twitching as he fought the squint spasming in response to the burning sting of sweat that plunked into his eye, mentally bracing himself for the salt-laced onslaught to continue. The chips if glittering blue were unnaturally deceiving, Matt had swiftly learned as a shiver traced the length of his spine. The colour was warm and inviting, the shade matching that of the cloudless skies in may, yet the intensity of the gaze itself could only be likened to the sub-zero temperature of a glacier. Let yourself be fooled by the promise which that wonderfully warm colour insisted and find yourself lulled into a metaphorical hypothermic death.

Matt could already feel the bitter sting of tears itching behind his eyes but he dare not reach up to rub them away lest he forfeit his success thus far. He longed to pull his gold tinted goggles over his vulnerable and delicate eyes, however he had been forbidden from shielding his deep, imperial emeralds from the battle. Instead he folded his hands beneath his chin as a support and continued in his stoic battle of wills.

Six minutes and twenty seven seconds had past since these two thirteen year old titans had engaged themselves in battle. Six minutes and thirty one seconds now, wasted on childish challenges whose bordering outcome held no relevance to anything. The eleven year old curled on the floor shook his head slightly, the snowy white curls fluttering with the motion.

He didn't understand the older boys and their fruitless endeavors, same as he didn't understand Matt's obsessive fascination of all things electrical nor Mello's strict athletic schedule. Near raised one leg to his chest, wrapping his arms about his thigh and pressing his temple to knee. They both tried far too hard to be everything that they were and yet everything that they weren't. Both were genii, that was an inescapable fact, but they both struggled to maintain an air of normality.

Near carefully stacked his dominoes higher, his eyes darting to and fro, monitoring his peers and mentally structuring his tower respectively. They were fools, the both of them, he decided as he watched the quiver of unease spasm openly along Matt's arms. Fools for not accepting the inevitability that flanked each and every child prodigy that made Wammy's House their home.

Genius breeds paranoia and eccentricity more profoundly than any narcotic substance, though not as quickly yet ultimately resulting in far more devastation. They could choose to travel the path that L, their mentor and first of Watari's successful extraordinary children, had already paved and neatly sign posted for his heirs. The path of the genius who not only accepted the cons that same gift wrapped with his brilliance but embraced it.

Or they could dance to the same merry and deliciously twisted tune that had swept up B, whose disillusions and unacceptance of the hand that fate had dealt him and sent him spiraling into the depths of insanity, baring his teeth in a maniacal and feral grin as he plummeted.

Beneath the table Mello's naked feet were pressing together. Toes entwining in discomfort, though he maintained his statuesque poise from the knee and upwards. A curve toyed with the edges of Near's mouth as he moved on from his dominos to stacking dice. His constant squat allowed him peeks at the cracks in the boy's armor. The cracks that the blond thought he covered so well. But no matter how much he polished that armor to a glaring finish, those cracks remained. And ultimately, those imperfections would save him from spiraling out of control and over taking B in all his maddened glory as he plummeted into his own personal twisted hell.

No. Mello may have his insecurities, and his brain; amazing as it is, may not always fire on all eight cylinders, but he was far from following either B into blazing hellfire though that did not necessarily mean that he would follow the carefully plotted path to fame and glory like his predecessor.

"Ow! Mello, that's cheating! You can't kick me!" Matt howled.

Near smiled into his knee. Mello would plot his own course. Blaze his own trail, though the boundaries that separated L's path from B's may blur in the blonds eyes from time to time, Near never doubted the older boys ultimate success.

"Stop pouting Matt," Mello's playful voice belied the impatient tone that he had injected into it as he snorted at his friend. "What do you want to play next?"

Near's brow puckered slightly into a frown, Matt. Now Matt was a harder child to read.

"Thumb war." The gamer declared.

He still stood at that harrowing fork in the road of adolescence, peering cautiously down either path before promptly pulling a portable games console from his pocket, folding his legs to sit himself at the brink of his destiny and refuse to move. Completely contented to simply let the world around him ignore him as he did the world.

The two boys locked fingers and, not bothering with the usual countdown, launched their opposable digits into war.

Near focused on bringing both his dice turrets and his domino walls together and marrying them into a seamless looking fortress as he attempted to stop up his ears to the cries and shouts the Mello and Matt exchanged. Once successful, the pale boy returned to his pondering of the entity known as Matt.

Most children simply needed a gentle nudge to choose a path to follow; Matt required full out bribes and a foot planted squarely up his rear before he'd contemplate even a second glance down either.

No, Near decided twisting the face of his latest dice to show him a five like the others, Matt was in no danger of descending into madness in any way, not by his own hands.

However…

'Ow! Damnit Matt! You got some kind of mutant thumbs or something? You're not supposed to try and break my thumb." Mello yanked his hand away from his friend and glared. Matt simply shrugged and grinned that big dopey 'Matt' grin that often made Near query and re-evaluate the red-heads mental capacity and his deserving of being third for succession. "And you aren't supposed to kick me in the shin during a stare out. So I guess we're even then."

Mello snorted and pulled a chocolate bar from his pocket, peeled back the foil and snapped the corner off between his teeth, pushing his chair back so that it tottered on two legs. "You wanna play tic-tac-toe?"

Near carefully nudged a domino that wasn't perfectly straight back into alignment with its brethren, and then returned to his previous train of thought.

Matt's idleness was a barrier that very few could penetrate, however Mello could over-ride any and all of Matt's defenses and self preservation tactics simply by asking for his help. The two boys, who had as much in common with each other as a sock and a panda, were inseparable and had been ever since Mello had first arrived at Wammy's. No one was quite sure as to how or why this phenomenon had occurred and none were brave enough to ask. Though Near had unearthed a small amount of information and, much to Matt's horror, a secret that the pair never spoke of… an incident involving one pinning the other in the library, snarling like a child possessed as the other whimpered and released the contents of his bladder…

Near reached a hand into his hair once more and twisted a curl between thumb and forefinger. The details were unimportant to him. All that interested him was that Mello was Matt's catalyst and Matt was Mello's tether. If the red headed gamer was to descend into hell it wouldn't be at the hand of B or L or even his own, but it would be entirely at the hands of the blond emotional whirlwind.

But Matt didn't care. If Mello was to hurl himself into the dark and uncertain abyss of his future, then Matt would take his hand, smile that grin, easing the fear and despair that swamped his friend's mind and jump right alongside him. Because to him, that was the only path he would consider worth choosing.

**End Author's Note.**

_Okay that was fun. I actually really enjoyed typing that one and it's probably the only piece that I've not sworn (I don't class damn as a swear) or typed any innuendos in so yay for all ages fiction piece. It's been raining today and I was at my pregnant friend's house while her other half was away and that's what we decided to do rather than get rained on and I could so see Mello and Matt playing such silly games and Mello cheating to win the psych out. Well hope you liked, please read and review._


End file.
